apparently the smarthub/bridge will not report any sensor data unless it
has established a connection with one of the acurite servers (or something
that responds like an acurite server). i tested this behavior with a
couple of smarthubs - one still running the old firmware (126) and one
running the newer firmware (224). occasionally i would see a sensor in the
smarthub's web interface, but for the most part the devices are useless
until they talk to the mothership.
the acurite servers used to reply to the smarthub with a simple string:
{"success":1, "checkversion":"126"}
the newer firmware expects a timestamp - probably to ensure that the
smarthub time is ok:
{"localtime":"%H:%M:%S", "checkversion":"224"}
if an older hub gets a version number other than 126, then it tries to
update the firmware. presumably the newer firmware would also try to
update if it gets version number other than 224, but i have not tested that.
after that initial response from the server, the smarthub starts sending
data (in either wu format or chaney format, depending on the firmware
version). those are the packets that we capture in order to collect data.
the interceptor driver will handle these cases so that any smarthub just
thinks that the interceptor is an acurite server.
so if your smarthub is running the older firmware, be sure to set the
firmware_version=126 parameter, otherwise your hub will probably hang,
trying to install the newer firmware (the interceptor does not know the
protocol for sending newer firmware - there's a project for a budding
reverse engineer, although the market for using it is now shrinking)
acurite shut down the myacurite.com and acu-link.com servers, and put
127.0.0.1 in as the dns entry. so any smarthub/bridge that attempts to
connect to them will resolve the name(s) to localhost, then fail.
this means that now you MUST run the interceptor in listen mode, not sniff
mode. in sniff mode, the interceptor does not interact with the smarthub,
so the smarthub hangs when it tries to contact itself (localhost) since
there are no acurite servers. in listen mode, the interceptor looks like
an acurite server, so the smarthub responds and data flows.
so you must make a dns entry for hubapi.myacurite.com and www.acu-link.com
that points to the machine running the interceptor, and you must ensure
that traffic on port 80 goes to the interceptor. the easiest way is to put
the dns override in your router's configuration, and make the interceptor
listen on port 80. but if you already have a web server running on port 80
on the same computer as the interceptor, then you'll have have to set up a
reverse proxy on the web server for the acurite urls, or run the web server
on a different port, or one of many other options explained in the
interceptor readme.
btw, you can continue to use smarthub with new acurite sensors - until
acurite changes their RF protocols, those smarthubs still have a many years
of life left in them, even though acurite has abandoned those who purchased
them. acurite is not likely to change the RF protocols, since even the
latest wifi consoles still know how to talk to them. (this is not unlike
the situation where open source software has given extended life to those
old rt45g routers)
the remote sensors are pretty cheap - i've seen them for as little as $5
each at walmart. and although you could skip the smarthub altogether by
using a usb sdr dongle, in some cases it might be easier/cheaper to use an
acurite bridge instead of the sdr.
hope that helps,
m
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"weewx-user" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
